Subida y Bajada

There’s a particular kind of cold that finds me above 4,000 meters along the Peru Great Divide. More than the temperature, it’s the thinness of everything. Thin air, thin layer of ice, thin margin for error. The Peru Great Divide has been a leap directly into the deep end for me. I thought TEMBR was hard, but I still encountered a pueblo each day along the TEMBR.

I’ve been pushing long days through this stretch - Bagheera’s tires (and my body) grinding over washboard dirt and loose gravel, the altitude making every kilometer harder the last. I had an 18km “flat” section, but for the most part, it’s all subida and bajada. The passes here don’t switchback politely; they go straight up, and the descents are just as unforgiving on the other side. I’m actually excited when I encounter switchbacks. By the time I roll into whatever small Andean town has a bed for the night, I’m not thinking about scenery. I’m thinking about calories, warmth, and sleep.

This is the part of touring nobody photographs. The golden-hour shot at the summit or the campground at the lake look great in photos, but what happens in the hour before it? Legs burning, breath short, wondering if the next colectivo or camiona might just be the more honest way through. There’s no shame in that thought; every long-distance rider has it. There have been several times on the Peru Great Divide where I’ve been ready to hitchhike with the next truck that passes, but traffic is so sparse along this route that it has never materialized.

The remoteness of this route is unrelenting. The towns are tiny, the transport is sparse, the mountains are high, and the wind is cold. I go days with no phone signal or resupply. Hours awake in my sleeping bag because it’s the only warm place after the sun goes down.

I’m physically and mentally exhausted. I plan to leave the Peru Great Divide route in Huancavelica (about 2/3 of the way through). There are roads out, but there’s also a bus I can take to Cusco. I knew that was the potential trade off - traversing the Great Divide is so much slower than the road option I had mapped out initially. Maybe a bus ride, some rest days, and a masaje in Cusco is what the doctor orders.